Queen Media Collective

Over the past few months, I have been seeing so many acts of infidelity in relationships. I have witnessed snake friends and even damaged family relationships. Given, this seems to be a common day to day thing, but what always strikes me as odd are the excuses. Someone’s boyfriend will cheat and they will complain and complain about how he isn’t doing his part in the relationship and when you give an honest observation or make a suggestion for self-healing, it’s an issue. And the excuses start ROLLING IN! Or when there is a constant family rift between someone and their parent or sibling, and the excuse becomes “well that’s my family”.

There are so many forms of toxic connections, but the way some people choose to handle them are the reasons they are able to move forward and heal. Of course, I know this because I personally have held on to toxic people, and the excuse I gave myself for my keeping ties was my loyalty as a friend or my relationship as a family member. My biggest problem was staying with a man who showed that he was not the one within the first few weeks of dating, and I kept telling myself he would change and spread the excuses of small gestures around to my family and friends when it came to covering up my complaints about him.

What it all boils down to is, the company that we keep is a reflection of who we are. So, it is VITAL that we keep our mirrors polished. It becomes a cycle of being so close to people that we become more likely to get caught up in making excuses for them and their actions. For us, it is so easy to shame a girl we don’t like for her promiscuous ways, but when a friend does it then it’s a HOT GIRL SUMMER; or when we see someone getting cheated on, the first things out of our mouths is “I wish my man would”, and meanwhile we are making excuses for the many “mistakes” our own man has made and calling it forgiving. 

We have to understand that we are responsible for the toxic relationships that we keep and how they begin to affect us. We have to learn to level the blame. Yes, sometimes there are shitty people in our circles and we love them, but we need to learn to set boundaries and accept them for who they are and love them at a distance until they can learn to improve ridiculous behaviors, and we need to stop taking on the blame of their actions and turning them into excuses. All it becomes is an on-going cycle of toxic mess. Take a step toward recognizing toxic behavior and how to push it further away from your life.